Hive Mind Books

💥 Help Save the Last Queer Bookstore in Manhattan! Hello, friends. We’re coming to you today to ask for your help to do something huge. (This is NOT an April Fools joke.) The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, located in the LGBT Center in the West Village, is the only queer bookstore in Manhattan dedicated to trans and queer books and events. For 13 years, founders Donnie and Greg have built a big community around queer art, literature, performance, and culture. In May, Donnie and Greg are leaving New York. If someone does not take over the Bureau, it will close, and Manhattan will no longer have a queer bookstore. ❤️‍🔥 We cannot let that happen. We need our queer spaces, especially now, when queer literature is under extreme censorship and trans people are being targeted by legislation that threatens their human rights, 🌈 Hive Mind Books has launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise $50,000 by June 1 to acquire the Bureau and keep it open. As part of this endeavour, we would also re-open the cafe on the first floor of the Center, which has been vacant for more than a year, and revive that community space. 💥 We need your help to do this! Head to the link in our bio to learn more and to make a donation. And help us spread the word! Over the coming weeks, we’ll share more about the Bureau’s history and Hive Mind Books’s plans to grow and sustain this queer cultural hub. ❤️‍🔥 🏳️‍🌈 Let’s keep queer literature alive and thriving in New York City! THANK YOU!

💙 Introducing Hive Mind Books Memberships Thanks to your support, Hive Mind Books has had a terrific first year in business. We’ve grown our staff, expanded the menu at our coffee counter, and hosted more than 170 events. We’ve donated more than $4,000 through our Community Fund. Every day, we work to fulfill our mission to uplift queer and trans readers and writers, and to keep trans and queer literature in circulation. Throughout it all, our motto remains: Do Good. Have Fun. Read Books. ✨ Today, we’re launching a new way to support our work: Hive Mind Books Memberships! Starting at $5 a month, these memberships provide financial support for the continued growth and sustainability of Hive Mind Books – while also offering some perks as a thank you. 💫 💙 💫 💙 💫 💙 💫 💙 💫 💙 💫 💙 💫 💙 💫 There are five tiers with accumulating perks. Every tier includes: ✨ 5% back on all purchases in-store and online at Hive Mind Books (coffee and books, everything!) ✨ A consistent contribution to the Hive Mind Books Community Fund, which donates money quarterly to community and nonprofit organizations working for human rights and social justice both locally and globally. (We will also continue to donate a portion of our overall profit.) For details and more information, visit /hivemindbookstore (link in bio) 💫 💙 💫 💙 💫 💙 💫 💙 💫 💙 💫 💙 💫 💙 💫 As we head into 2026 and begin our transition to a worker-owned cooperative, we’re sitting with deep gratitude for everyone who comes through these doors and feeds the collective energy of this space. Whether or not you sign up for a membership, you are a member of the Hive Mind Books community. This membership program is one of many ways to keep the store going. We also need the heart, humor, camaraderie, and creativity of everyone who makes this such a special place. Thank you. #queerbookstore #independentbookstore #bushwick #brooklyn #shoplocal

💻 👾 We’re excited to announce that you can now find the entire Hive Mind Books inventory (and more!) online! 👾💻 Visit the new and improved , where you can: 💾 Browse every new, used, & discounted book in the store 📀 Browse our entire inventory of queer & trans books 🖥️ Find & order virtually any book in print, even if it’s not currently on our shelves 📚 Pre-order forthcoming books When you order, you have two delivery options: 👋 Pick up in-store (we are always happy to see you!) 📬 Have your order shipped (we ship far & wide!) Some of you have already been placing web orders with us. Thank you! Now that we have the hang of processing and fulfillment, we’re excited to announce it to the world! We appreciate your support. Whether in-store or online, whether it’s a cup of coffee or a book, your support allows us to open up this space every day for queer community and focus on what really matters at a bookstore: meeting our neighbors and feeling connected to one another face-to-face. Thank you for supporting a queer, independent bookstore! 🌈📚🌈📚🌈📚🌈📚🌈📚🌈 Hive Mind Books & Coffee 219 Irving Avenue Bushwick #pridemonth #queerbookstore #bookstagram #queerbookstagram #independentbookstore #indiebookstore #brooklyn #bushwick #shoplocal

😎 Weekend at the Bookstore 😎 We’re in the middle of catching up on a ton of receiving. Stop by to see the new and lovely gay books we’re pulling out of cardboard boxes. Don’t mind the stacks. Feel free to sift through ‘em. ✨ We’re open 11am - 6pm Saturday & Sunday. ✨ New Moon Circle is Saturday at 5:30 Breakfast tacos are in the toaster oven, warm and waiting for you. We have oatmeal now, too. We can make it with steamed milk, if you want. Wholesome and delicious. Jay’s got you behind the bar Saturday. Gabriel’s got you on Sunday. It’s going to be a warm one. Grab a matcha lemonade, a book, and one of the outdoor tables in the shade. Oh baby, baby, it’s a wild world. Let’s relax together. 😎 🔥 😎 🔥 😎 🔥 😎 🔥 😎 🔥 😎 🔥 😎 🔥 😎 Hive Mind Books Queer Bookstore & Coffee Shop 219 Irving Avenue Bushwick (L) Dekalb (M/L) Myrtle-Wyckoff (M) Knickerbocker

BUSHWICK! Intimate F[r]agments, the smutty trans open mic, is coming inside you for the first time next Friday the 22nd at Hive Mind Bookstore from 7-9pm! Bring your poetry, prose, s3xts, fanfics, exposes, fantasies, and more to the mic, or just come out to hear what the community has to share! Readers have from 5-7 mins to speak on the themes of: love, heartbreak, seggs, and/or transness. Arrive at 6:30 to reserve your spot at the mic! This is an 18+ space. Queers of any shape are invited to read, and people of any experience are welcome to attend :) Coffee, tea, and snacks will be available for purchase. Please rsvp via lib 🧡 We can’t wait to see you!

✨ This Sunday at the Bureau ✨ Poet Kelsey L. Smoot, gender theorist and author of the debut DOPAMINE collection Soulmate as a Verb, performs his powerful lyrical work and talks with visual artist/performer/print maker and curator Lo Smith about the evolution and lived experience of artistry for Black queer artists across mediums. This event is happening Sunday 5/17 at 3pm at the Bureau. It is free and open to the public. After the conversation, Kelsey will sign copies of their book. RSVP at the link in our bio. Join us! ✨ 💗 ✨ 💕 ✨ About The Book: “The simple yet fraught experience of embodiment lies at the thrumming heart of Kelsey L. Smoot’s SOULMATE AS A VERB. Bodies make love possible, they enable tender connection and transmit electric joy, all while leaving one vulnerable to discord and abuse, heartbreak and grief. Like a body, Smoot’s daring poetry metabolizes cruelty, seeking the tender knowledge and kinships that allow for buoyant survival. The subjectivity of a Black, trans self becomes a prism, shining a variegated intellect on everything from suburbia to Palestine, top surgery to police violence.” ✨ 💗 ✨ 💕 ✨ The Bureau Manhattan’s Queer Bookstore 208 W 13th St NYC Room 210 (inside the LGBT Center) (L) to 6 Ave

Love the nonstop love for our Honey Cinnamon Latte. A touch of sweetness, a bright bite of cinnamon. It started as a seasonal special and has become a staple on our menu. 🍯 Have you tried it yet? We love being your friendly neighborhood queer bookstore and coffee shop. We’re open 7 days a week on the corner of Irving and Harman in Bushwick. Free WiFi, chill vibes. Come get some work done while surrounded by queer literature. We aren’t clocking how long you’re here or how many drinks you buy. Just hang out. That’s what we’re here for. 🍯 ☕️ 🍯 ☕️ 🍯 ☕️ 🍯 ☕️ 🍯 ☕️ 🍯 ☕️ 🍯 ☕️ 🍯 Hive Mind Books Queer Bookstore & Coffee Shop 219 Irving Avenue Bushwick (L) Dekalb (M/L) Myrtle-Wyckoff (M) Knickerbocker

Join us next Tuesday for The Shape of What Remains, an intimate evening of poetry that brings together Darius Phelps (@dr.dphelps , Andrew Chi Keong Yim (@bootcutkhakis ), and Kyle Carrero Lopez (@kylecarrerolopez ). At the center of the evening is the debut of The Holy Ghost Lives In Her Laugh, Phelps’s latest collection via @kithbooks that traces the sacred echoes of family, faith, and loss. Here, laughter becomes more than joy—it becomes presence, a way of naming what remains when absence refuses to be silent. Together, these voices create a space that is both tender and unflinching—where silence is honored, memory is given breath, and reading becomes an act of witnessing. RSVP using the link in bio!

Looking for something to do during Pride Month 🏳️‍🌈 in NYC and want to support an indie Production Company create a LGBTQIA+ Dystopian series 🎬 with an important message? Come hang out! Friday June 12th, 2026 Doors Open: 7pm Hive Mind Books & Coffee Shop Brooklyn, NY #linkinbio #filmfundraiser #scriptreading #lgbtqdystopian #cataclysmbegins

💫 Events This Week 💫 Well well well here we are sliding into the middle of May. Thanks for a bumping weekend, it was fun! Have you tried our banana pudding latte yet? 🍌 It’s been popular. We have something happening every day this week. Come through to spend time in community and to gather some creative inspiration and motivation. It’ll all be fun! Info and RSVP at the links in our bio. Heads up that this month, our Reading Room silent reading hour is a fundraiser for the Ali Forney Center, supporting homeless QT youth. 🍌 📚 🍌 📚 🍌 📚 🍌 📚 🍌 📚 🍌 📚 🍌 📚 🍌 Monday 5/11 6:30pm-8:30pm 📝 Margin Scribes: A QTBIPOC Writing Circle Tuesday 5/12 7pm 📖 Read-In to support the Ali Forney Center Silent reading hour benefiting the largest LGBT community center helping LGBTQ homeless youth in the United States. Wednesday 5/12 7pm 🎩 Author Event: Olivia Wolfgang-Smith with Mutual Interest We’ll make monogrammed bookmarks after the talk. Materials will be provided! Thursday 5/13 11:30am - 1:30pm 💻 Queer Writer Coworking Thursday 5/13 7pm 🎤 Work In Progress: A Queer Literary Open Mic Friday 5/14 7pm 🪻 Sapphic Creative Writing NYC Saturday 5/15 5:30pm 🌒 New Moon Circle with Sterling Bowen Sunday 5/16 5pm 🏳️‍⚧️ OFF SITE: Trans Art Fest Exhibition with @chrysalis4transyouth Starling Skies: an art show with trans kids and adults. Closing celebration! 🍌 📚 🍌 📚 🍌 📚 🍌 📚 🍌 📚 🍌 📚 🍌 📚 🍌 Hive Mind Books Queer Bookstore & Coffee Shop 219 Irving Avenue Bushwick (L) Dekalb (M/L) Myrtle-Wyckoff (M) Knickerbocker

🎩 ✨ For fans of queer historical fiction ✨🎩 This Wednesday May 13 at 7pm, we’re traveling back in time to turn-of-the-century, post-Gilded Age New York City with Olivia Wolfgang-Smith, author of the novel Mutual Interest (now in paperback, huzzah!). Three queer aspiring titans of business forge friendships, partnerships, and even a marriage to make it big in the industry of soaps, perfumes, and personal bath products. Parties, hook ups, love affairs, and fortunes ensue! If you think we modern queers invented drama - we did not. Messy queers abound in history and Olivia has brought three of them to vivid life in this book. Olivia is a wonderful storyteller. Her writing has a classic style. It’s smart, absorbing, detailed, and observant. You’ll learn a lot about NYC during this period, and also gain insight into the burgeoning industry of what we now know as “self-care” products If historical novels are your vibe, you will love Mutual Interest. After a brief reading and talk with Olivia, we’ll make monogrammed bookmarks in the style of the period. All supplies will be provided. The event is free to attend. RSVP at the link in our bio. 🎩 ⚡️ 🎩 ⚡️ 🎩 ⚡️ 🎩 ⚡️ 🎩 ⚡️ 🎩 ⚡️ 🎩 ⚡️ 🎩 Hive Mind Books Queer Bookstore & Coffee Shop 219 Irving Avenue Bushwick (L) Dekalb (M/L) Myrtle-Wyckoff (M) Knickerbocker

Think you know your queer history and culture? Come put your knowledge to the test on Wednesday May 27th at the legendary @henriettahudson ! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ At this month’s trivia, we’re celebrating the release of The Lesbian Bar Chronicles, which features a chapter on our beloved Hen’s. Copies will be available from @hivemindbookstore at the event, and trivia will be followed by signing and casual conversation. 🗓️: Wednesday, May 27 🕥: 6-8pm 📍: Henrietta Hudson, 438 Hudson St. NY, NY 🎟️: reserve your spot and preorder your 📕 copy at the 🔗 in our b!0